Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Anna Eliza Bray
-
Standard Name: Bray, Anna Eliza
Birth Name: Anna Eliza Kempe
Married Name: Anna Eliza Stothard
Married Name: Anna Eliza Bray
Nickname: Eliza
Used Form: Mrs Bray
Used Form: Mrs Charles Stothard
Used Form: the author of De Foix
AEB
first reached print with a collection of letters, the first of two which appeared over the course of her career. During fifty-four years, she published twelve novels, and twelve historical and biographical works. She edited several posthumous works by others and also produced writing for children. Many of her works were inspired by historical events or figures as well as by English folklore and legend. Some of her novels proved controversial for alleged anti-Catholicism at a time of fierce debate over Catholic Emancipation; much of her fiction and history focuses on Protestant resistance to religious oppression. A popular success during the mid-Victorian period, AEB
has of late received little critical attention.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research, 1992.
"Anna Eliza Bray" by Bildagentur-online/Contributor,1883-01-02.Retrieved from https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/anna-eliza-bray-1790-1883-english-writer-historic-image-news-photo/629419737.This image is licensed under the GETTY IMAGES CONTENT LICENCE AGREEMENT.
brought on by his youthful experiments with the drug. In 1840 she wrote to Anna Eliza Bray
Family and Intimate relationships
Christina Rossetti
Through her mother CR
was also distantly related to writer Anna Eliza Bray
.
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking, 1995.
16
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Maria Colling
She died when Mary was five years old, bringing her granddaughter a great early sorrow.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, pp. 1 - 85.
22, 36-7
MMC
never saw her grandmother's birth-name written and so its correct spelling is unknown. Anna Eliza Bray
speculates...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Bowles
CB
's dealings with Blackwood's led to a positive working relationship with editor John Wilson
. She also maintained a long correspondence with Anna Eliza Bray
and (in later years) a shorter one with poet...
Although William Wordsworth
can be regarded as mediator between Kate Southey
and CB
, he was convinced that Bowles was at fault. The entire Wordsworth clan, and Sara Coleridge
, allied themselves with Southey's youngest...
Friends, Associates
Robert Southey
Having early in his life admired writers like Mary Wollstonecraft
and Charlotte Smith
, he later numbered women writers such as Anna Eliza Bray
among his close friends.
Friends, Associates
Mary Maria Colling
Anna Eliza Bray
first noticed MMC
sometime in or just before 1827, when she spotted her in Tavistock church: a young woman, of the humbler class, dressed exceedingly neat, and remarkable on account of the...
Health
Mary Maria Colling
Anna Eliza Bray
later wrote that her friend had a nervous temperament.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, pp. 1 - 85.
8
In a letter to Robert Southey
, Bray reported that Colling admitted to being assailed by envy and malice, on account...
Intertextuality and Influence
Christina Rossetti
She noted that it was initially titled A Peep at the Goblins in imitation of her cousin Anna Eliza Bray
's recent book, A Peep at the Pixies; Gabriel
came up with the title...
Literary responses
Mary Maria Colling
Maria Jane Jewsbury
's review for the Athenæum doubted whether Bray
's act of bringing Colling into the literary spotlight and drawing public attention to her as an intellectual marvel . . . is not...
Literary responses
Caroline Bowles
The Gentleman's Magazine's obituary for Bowles recalled that Chapters on Churchyardscontributed materially to establish her literary reputation and also showed powers of narrative fitting her for a popular and profitable branch of composition...
Literary responses
Mary Maria Colling
Colling shared her earliest writings with very few people. Her first audience was an old man named Pearce, who responded favourably to her work. Anna Eliza Bray
, however, reports that several others scorned [Colling]...
Occupation
Mary Maria Colling
Colling had an amicable relationship with Mrs Hughes. According to the novelist Anna Eliza Bray
, she thought her employer grew as fond of her as if she had been her own child.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, pp. 1 - 85.